#oneaday Day 687: Minibreak

I am in a hotel for the second time in one week! This time it's for non-work reasons. We're going to The Cave tomorrow to see a talk by Ian "h0ffman" Ford, a veteran of the Amiga demoscene, and an experienced porter of games to platforms they absolutely were not designed for. It should be a good time.

Anyway, it's also my birthday in a few days time, and Andie couldn't think of what to buy me as a present, so she paid for us to have a night in a nice hotel ahead of our Cave visit, rather than having to drive there early in the morning. It's about two hours' drive from us, so getting there for an 11am start would have meant getting up much earlier than we normally do on a weekend. Yes, we are still teenagers in that regard.

The hotel is nice. It's a four-star hotel, so it evidently was pretty swanky in its prime; today, it could do with a lick of paint and some repairs here and there, but it's not in bad condition. The facilities are nice — there's a great pool and spa area that we spent a bit of time in this afternoon — and the food at the restaurant we had for dinner was really tasty. Moderately pricy, but not unreasonably so, particularly considering we had three courses.

I'm looking forward to visiting The Cave again. My visit a couple of years back is a fond memory, and the place has had more work done since then, plus some new additions to the collection. h0ffman's talk should be interesting, and it will be nice to show my wife and a friend of ours what it's all about.

Anyway, I'm typing this on my phone because I didn't have the foresight to bring a keyboard with me, so I'm going to leave that there. It's after midnight anyway, so we had better sleep. I will try and remember to take some photos tomorrow!

#oneaday Day 686: A space to say things

As I mentioned a few days ago, I have started Going to Therapy. It has been pretty good so far, for one big reason: it is a place where I can go where I feel like I can pretty much say anything.

psychologist writing on clipboard during session — Photo by Alex Green on Pexels.com

This is such a valuable thing to have, whatever form it takes. And I know I say a lot of things on this blog, but there are certain things I have second thoughts before posting about. Just this evening, I deleted the start of a post where I was going to have a go about something, then decided that the potential arguments it might start (it's not anything racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic or anything like that, don't worry) just simply would not be worth the stress it would cause.

To put it another way, the benefits I would gain from getting those thoughts out of my head and onto paper would be far outweighed by the stress any subsequent "discourse" might cause. (Or it might not. But in this instance I think it's best to just not take the risk at all.)

Modern life is exhausting, and talking to the people who are closest to you can sometimes be difficult for all manner of different reasons. When that's the case, you can find yourself bottling up emotions, particularly frustrations and anger, and not really having any way to release them. And that's why having a space to say things is important.

Your space to say things doesn't have to be Going to Therapy. It could be a journal that you keep for yourself, written by hand and locked in a drawer, for your eyes only. It could be a password-protected note in your note-taking app of choice. It could be a voice memo you leave for yourself. It could be abstractly represented through a piece of art, music or writing you choose to create. It could be something you tell your cat when no-one else is around.

It can take many forms. What's important is that you feel like you have it. Ideally it provides you with a feeling of "release", that you've let those emotions out of your brain, acknowledging their existence and how they are making you feel, and perhaps contemplating why you are having them in the first place.

Is the thing you think you are mad about really the thing you are actually mad about, or is it a symptom of something more broad that you need to deal with? Is the whole thing a situation you have put yourself in that you can just as easily extract yourself from? Take a step back from the part of you that is angry and frustrated, and talk to them. What, exactly, is upsetting them? Why are they feeling that way? What do they think they should do about it? What do they think they can do about it? What do they think the consequences for doing something about it might be, and do they think those consequences are worth the temporary catharsis of doing the thing?

There are no easy answers about this sort of thing, but it always pays to be reflective and contemplative. The modern world — and particularly the Internet — is set up in such a way to deliberately make us nearly constantly mad and frustrated, and it's easy to forget that when the red mist starts to descend and all you want to do is yell at someone. That's what a significant amount of the Internet wants, and I'm not just talking about trolls. It's in corporations' interests to keep you mad, because being mad means you're engaged. And engagement, after all, is the be-all and end-all of modern-day "KPIs".

I've taken a step back from the thing I was mad about. I'm still a bit mad about it, but on reflection, it's really not something that is all that worth getting mad about. It is something I can, relatively easily, put to one side and never think about ever again.

So I think I'm going to do that. Or at least try to, anyway.

Want to read my thoughts on various video games, visual novels and other popular culture things? Stop by MoeGamer.net, my site for all things fun where I am generally a lot more cheerful. And if you fancy watching some vids on classic games, drop by my YouTube channel.

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#oneaday Day 685: Very tired

I've been absolutely exhausted all day. I feel like I got a decent night's sleep, particularly after the tiring day I had at work followed by the long drive home, but also feel like I could have done with approximately 12 hours more sleep. I actually managed to get a fair amount done today, but right now I just feel like I could shut my eyes and fall asleep right here on the sofa.

With that in mind, I'm probably going to have an early night tonight. I'd like to get back into Pragmata, which I'm enjoying a lot, but I'm also not sure my brain is up to playing anything too complex this evening. Perhaps this would be a good evening to do a bit of retro gaming, with an emphasis on something that isn't too challenging or complex to deal with.

I actually have the next two Evercade cartridges that haven't been released yet, which I'm kind of dying to talk about but can't because although I have them in my hands, we haven't even announced them yet. That will be happening soon, however, and when it does I will have plenty to enthuse about, believe me. They're not the biggest releases of the year, by any means, but they are some of my favourites.

No; I'm thinking this evening might be a good opportunity to settle down with something comfortably familiar, but which I perhaps haven't played for a while. I'm hoping in the process of typing this, something will come to mind that feels like it might be fun to spend my evening playing. Maybe Starwing? I haven't played that for a while. Last time I tried it, the MiSTer SNES core was having issues with the SuperFX chip, but I believe that's been resolved at this point, so that might be a good shout. I do love a bit of Starwing, and it is actually quite a long time since I've played it.

I'm going to get back into doing some videos soon, for those who have been wondering why it's been all quiet on that front for a while. I just haven't really felt an urge to do that for a little while, and forcing yourself to do something you're not really feeling is a sure-fire way to get yourself feeling burnt out. I won't have time to do any this coming weekend, as we're taking a trip to The Cave, but I have a few days off for my birthday at the start of next week, so I might take a day or two to record a few things over that period. Exactly what, I have no idea just yet; I have a few things in mind that I might like to explore, but haven't decided firmly on when or how to tackle them. This upcoming bit of free time might be the ideal opportunity to jump into them.

Anyway, I think I might have made a decision on what to do with my evening — although at the rate I'm going, I may well be asleep before I've got anywhere. If that's the way it goes, though, that's the way it goes!

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#oneaday Day 684: Taco Bell regrets

I know the common joke that Taco Bell gives you the shits, though I must confess I've never had an issue with its UK-based incarnation. In fact, I rather like a lot of their stuff — a Volcano Burrito is my usual poison of choice.

Today, though, I had I think the worst meal I've ever had from them, and possibly from any service station fast food place. I did not end up with the shits — at least I don't think so; I did have a large dump when I got in, but that is usually the case after the long drive home from work.

Anyway, I saw that they were doing "Sweet habanero tenders", and thought they sounded nice. The picture looked nice, too — some rather Wingstop-esque tenders drizzled with what would presumably be a sweet, hot sauce. Andie and I are big fans of Wingstop, and their mango habanero sauce is one of my favourite things to have on their chicken, even if it gives me hiccups every time, without fail.

I got my food and was surprised to discover that the tenders were just stuffed into a bag and not drizzled with any sort of sauce, but I thought "oh well, the coating is probably nice by itself".

What then followed is, I think, the driest meal I have ever eaten. I made the mistake of also accompanying the tenders with some nachos rather than fries, and as such the experience as a whole was remarkably akin to eating a bag of lightly seasoned sand. The only mildly redeeming part of the meal was the glazed churros for dessert; they both tasted good and brought some much-needed "wet" to proceedings with their sauce.

On the whole, though, I cannot, in any way, recommend the sweet habanero tenders at Taco Bell, particularly at South Mimms Services at the A1/M25 junction. I normally look forward to grabbing a bit of a treat on the drive home from my monthly office visit, but this time it seems I made a terrible mistake. I won't let that happen again!

At least the food I had last night was good. When I met up with my friend, we got food from the hotel I was staying at — and said hotel does pretty good food. I fancied something a bit different from the norm, so had a Hungarian Goulash, and it was delicious. A rich, flavourful, creamy sauce, well-cooked meat, fluffy potatoes and some nice squishy dumpling-like things that were apparently made from egg noodles, of all things. It was accompanied by some nice bread and served up in a little cauldron over a candle for you to ladle into the main bowl. Absolutely lovely stuff — and it basically cost the same as the shitty Taco Bell meal I had this evening on the way home.

This was followed by a lovely chocolate brownie accompanied with some decent ice cream, and all delivered with some excellent service from a waitress that my friend was rather taken with. A thoroughly agreeable evening, gastronomically speaking. And socially speaking, for that matter, as yesterday's post hopefully made clear.

Well, lesson learned. Perhaps I should just have dinner at the hotel before starting the long drive home!

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#oneaday Day 683: Reconnection

Today I had an interesting experience. It's one that I wasn't sure about in the run-up to it, and I might even say that I was nervous enough to be almost "dreading" it — but I'm pleased to report that it all went well.

The experience in question was meeting up with someone who was one of my best friends back during our mutual school days, but someone whom I haven't seen for more than 20 years. I had, for many years, assumed that our lives had simply diverged, and that was that — it's happened with plenty of other people in the past, so one more wasn't a particular surprise.

Imagine how surprised I was to get a message from my Dad a little while back, though, telling me that one of his friends had happened to come into contact with this erstwhile friend of mine, and that the latter was interested in reconnecting with me.

I initially wasn't sure what to make of the situation. As I say, our lives (and lifestyles) had diverged significantly around our university years, as we had gone to different places and studied different subjects — though in a peculiar twist of fate, I did spend two of my three years at university living with his then-girlfriend. Not in a dodgy way, I might add; we were just friends, and it seemed optimal for everyone involved to come to some sort of arrangement.

Anyway, at some point in our third year of study, my erstwhile friend went over to Europe to continue his studies and, as our time as students came to an end, we sort of lost touch. As I say, at the time I felt like it was mostly a case of our lives and lifestyles moving in fundamentally incompatible directions — sad, to be sure, since we had been the best of friends at school, but an understandable symptom of growing up and growing older.

Thus it was that I arranged to meet him this evening in the hotel where I'm staying for my monthy visit to work. He happened to be in the area and definitely seemed keen to meet, so I decided that I would take a chance and see what would happen. I was nervous — scared, even — but also very conscious that 20+ years can make a lot of differences in someone's life and way that they live, so I was hopeful that we'd be able to sort of… "reboot" and see what happened there.

I'm delighted to report that things went well. A lot has happened in 20+ years for both of us, and we spent a lot of time catching up on things. But at the same time, my friend that I once knew was well and truly back. He was not the person that I had drifted out of touch with for one reason or another; he was the person that I used to know, and before long we were swapping stories, sharing truths and talking just like the big 20+ year gap had never happened.

I'm happy about this, for a number of reasons. I'm happy that I reconnected with someone who was once an important part of my life. I'm happy that his life seems to have gone in a positive direction, even if the course of it has taken a very different trajectory to mine. And I'm happy that the person I used to know is still there. Or has come back. Or some combination of all of those things.

To put it another way, this was a worthwhile exercise that I'm glad I took a chance on. It would have been so easy to make an excuse and try to get out of it — I've done this in the past with social occasions I've been uneasy about — but no, I decided that what I needed to do was take a chance on this, and just see where things ended up.

As it happens, I feel like they ended up in a good place. I hope this is the beginning of not just one rekindled friendship, but several — as he put me in touch with a couple of other people who had expressed an interest in reconnecting. We shall have to see where that all goes.

Anyway, after all that, my "social battery", as the kids call it these days, is well and truly depleted, so I am going to sit and play video games until it is time to go to bed. Good night!

#oneaday Day 682: Freedom!

I'm officially free of professional social media responsibilities from today, and let me tell you, I am incredibly glad and very grateful for the opportunity to take this sideways step in my career. I didn't come into my job with the intention of being The Social Media Guy, it just sort of fell to me. And before long, it was something that started to really get me down.

You see, being The Social Media Guy for a brand means that you have to face down the absolute worst end of humanity online day after day. You have to just sit back and take abuse from random strangers. You have to listen to fuckheads taking the piss out of things that you've worked hard on. You have to watch people spread lies. And in pretty much all of these cases, you have very little power to actually do anything about them. In the meantime, you're expected to put across the image of being relentlessly chipper, positive and call-to-action-y in an attempt to get a society full of people with an attention span of less than three seconds to give a shit about the thing you've worked hard on.

Honestly, it's a complete and total drag. When you're working at a job you actually like, on a product that you actually believe in and are proud to be associated with, the absolute last thing you want to see is a bunch of Facebook randos wilfully misunderstanding what it is you're doing, and being incredibly rude about it. I know that most of these people aren't posting the things they post out of an intention to make someone feel bad — most people see a brand account and think it's a "faceless" thing — but, as someone who has spent some time being the face behind that brand account, let me tell you: when you act like a cunt to the brand, someone has to read your bullshit just in case you might actually have a valid issue, and if you're being a cunt, you're probably making someone feel bad.

It's one of those things that you don't really notice at first. You can laugh it off as "oh, look at these silly Internet people". Over time, though, it really starts to get to you. The fact that you can't just respond to one of these people, go "look, shut the fuck up, no-one gives a shit about what you think, and there is an entire team of people behind me who have worked their arses off on this thing you're being dismissive about" is frustrating. Honestly, I would respect any brand account that fully took the gloves off and took an abusive commenter down a peg or two, but it's Not The Done Thing.

I'm glad to be out of it. It's not my problem any more. There are people who can do a much better job at it than me, and I am more than happy to let them take care of it while I get on with some of the things where my actual strengths lie. For now, that means continuing to write blog posts, videos and documentation, and stepping up the amount of playtesting and "tech" work that I get to do. I'm hoping I will learn something over the long term — and in the short term, it feels like I have even greater involvement in working on things that actually mean something to me, and that I feel have value.

I hope I never have to look back. I have been looking forward to the day I never have to look at Twitter and Facebook ever again for a long time, and now it's pretty much here — barring any occasions when I need to cover someone who's off, because unfortunately I'm the one who is most qualified (or I should perhaps say experienced) for that cover. But I'll take it for now. This is a positive step, and one that I'm happy about.

Just remember to be kind to the people posting stuff from a brand that you have an interest in. Someone has to read that vitriol you post, and I can guarantee they have a million and one ways they'd rather spend their day.

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#oneaday Day 681: Pragmatic

I started playing Pragmata yesterday, because some people whose opinions I trust had been saying very appealing things about it, and I thought it might be nice to play something "current" for was.

Pragmata is very, very good.

I'll go into more detail about this over on MoeGamer once I've beaten it (because I most certainly am going to beat this) but I thought I'd post a few initial thoughts over here for now.

For the unfamiliar, Pragmata is a game that Capcom has apparently been working on for a very long time indeed, which might account for why so many people have been saying that it sounds like a game somewhat "out of time"; depending on who you talk to, you will almost certainly hear the opinion that it is "like a PS2 game" or "like an Xbox 360 game". (Of the two, I think the latter is probably more accurate, for what it's worth.)

The reason for this is that it thumbs its nose at a lot of today's gameplay conventions. It's not open world. It's not an RPG in disguise. Its controls are extremely simple and straightforward (move, aim, shoot, interact, plus moving the little cursor thingy during the hacking minigame). It's not belabouring how emotionally resonant it is through overwrought, manipulative writing. It's not trying to be all things to all people. It's just trying to be one thing, and to do that thing really, really well.

And it succeeds! If I had to pigeonhole it I'd say it's a third-person shooter, but it's not a constant, all-out action sort of affair. There's a lot of exploration, with plenty of hidden rewards for those willing to get curious — but those "hidden" areas are always possible to stumble across without relying on a guide. There's an element of survival horror, in that all weapons but your standard sidearm have severely limited ammo, and you only have limited healing opportunities per expedition.

Mostly it's just an extraordinarily well-designed game. You have a companion character who is actually useful — both in terms of her mechanical function, and in that her "barks" during combat are actually helpful audible cues for things like dodging attacks. The levels are beautifully designed to have a grandiose sense of scale at times, but never overwhelm you with possible ways you can go. It controls well. It looks great. It runs great. It's just great. Really, really great.

I think that's probably all I want to say about it for now, because honestly I'm just eager to get back to it. I've completely cleared out the first two levels (aside from two hidden chests in the second level that I will need to come back with a new ability for) and am just going into the third. I also suspect it's not going to be an obscenely long game, which, honestly, I'm 100% fine with.

Anyway. It's time to hop back into the Cradle and see what new horrors await me and Diana…

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#oneaday Day 680: Real problems

Let me say a simple phrase to you, and I invite you to, quietly, to yourself, ponder what that phrase means and says to you.

Male loneliness epidemic.

I mention this because it is something I see being increasingly mocked by supposedly progressive types online, and it always rubs me up the wrong way any time I see it happening. Don't get me wrong, I understand why those people mock this phrase — it's because it's significantly more likely to be used by odious twats who think the be-all and end-all of existence is "getting" a girl to sleep with them, and any time these people talk about the male loneliness epidemic, what they actually mean is "God, I can't trick women into fucking me, woe is me."

To be clear: that kind of behaviour is shitbag fuckboi material, and anyone engaging with it needs to take a long, hard look at themselves. Ask not "how can I get a girl?", as if she is something to be possessed, but rather "how can I make myself into someone that other people might be interested to know?"

However, here's a significant issue. I firmly believe that there is a problem with modern men and loneliness. And the combination of the I'm A Nice Guy, Why Won't Anyone Fuck Me people and the hahaha, male loneliness epidemic losers people makes it very difficult to have a frank and honest conversation about what is actually a very real problem.

What I mean by this is that I am a man, and I am lonely. I used to have a lot of friends when I was younger, but over the years that number has dwindled to such a degree — not through my own lack of trying to maintain them — that I now have some exceedingly strong self-esteem issues over my own value as a human being. And these are, of course, compounded by my own status as being On The Spectrum, which commonly manifests itself as paralysing social anxiety, particularly when in an unstructured socialisation sort of situation.

I used to be glad for the friendships I had. I was grateful that people seemingly wanted to have me around, enjoyed having me around. I felt that, even though I still struggled in situations where I was surrounded by unfamiliar people, I had places where I belonged, and people that I belonged with. And, by extension, I felt like I was the sort of person who had something to offer as a friend.

Various happenings have left me… not feeling like that any more. When combined with the absolute revulsion I feel at my physical appearance — a result of a lack of self-control that probably ties back in with anxiety and depression, and the thorough bizarreness of the COVID years — it is difficult to feel like I have any value any more. That's probably a terrible thing to say about oneself, but… well, it's how I feel. I am forever grateful to my family, my wife and my cats for being constants in my life that I can rely on; I am, at least, thankful that I am not in a situation where I have literally nothing.

I'll admit something to you now: I started going to therapy last week. And the above is one of the subjects that came up. It's going to be something that I need to work on. I don't yet know how that will happen, or what form that work will take, but those conversations have already started. So it's not as if I'm completely without hope.

It's just frustrating when you might want to talk about these things with someone other than a Qualified Professional, but you fear the reaction is just going to be hahaha, male loneliness epidemic loser. I thought the problem was that dudes don't talk about their feelings and emotions enough? Belittling them isn't going to help with that, now, is it?

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#oneaday Day 679: Hold on to the night, there will be no shame

I was randomly reminded of the existence of Robot Unicorn Attack this evening, and I am pleased to report that despite Flash being long-dead, you can actually still play the original (complete with Erasure soundtrack) over at CrazyGames. We are officially living in an age where Flash, as a platform, is old enough to have Web-based emulators. Not only that, this blog is old enough to have posts referring to the original incarnation of Robot Unicorn Attack, along with its excellent Facebook-based incarnation. Now there's something I don't say very often.

For the unfamiliar, Robot Unicorn Attack is a simple, "endless runner" game with just two buttons: one to jump (which can be used again in mid-air for a double-jump), and one for a rainbow attack dash move that can break through crystal stars. Your one and only goal in Robot Unicorn Attack is to survive as long as possible and score as many points as you can across three "wishes" (lives). As the game says when you start it, "you will fail". And indeed you will. But then you will try again, and again, and again.

It's a potent example at arcade-style game design at its absolute best: provide an experience that is extremely easy to understand, even for those who don't play a lot of games, and then balance it just well enough to make it inordinately compelling rather than frustrating, but still challenging. It is unironically one of the most well-crafted games of the 2010s, and I'm glad that people have found a means of preserving it — and in a fashion that is true to its original incarnation, no less. As a Flash game, originally published by Adult Swim, Robot Unicorn Attack's home is very much on the Web, and while I certainly wouldn't be averse to having an offline version I could play at any time I want, you can't get much more convenient than just going to a website and playing using nothing more than the Z and X keys on your keyboard.

Web games are in such a strange place right now. There's always been a certain amount of cloning and overly derivative stuff, but this seems to be particularly rife these days. There are about a billion variations on the "run down the path and go through gates with numbers on them" game. I don't know what the original and first one of those was; I just know there are now so many of them it is, at times, difficult to find anything else.

It doesn't help that a lot of today's Web games are adaptations of mobile games, with all the obnoxious predatory monetisation and infestation with adverts that entails. But, like I say, I'm pleased to see that some of the all-time classics are preserved through emulation — and best of all, no-one can bitch at you about not playing on "original hardware" if you play Robot Unicorn Attack on CrazyGames, or anywhere else it might be hosted, because it always was intended to just be played right there in your browser.

Now that I've rediscovered it, I think it might be time for a high score run or twenty before bed. Sing it with me, now… always, I want to be with you, and make believe with you, and live in harmony, harmony, oh love…

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#oneaday Day 678: Chillin' with my Tomodachi

On something of a whim — and after seeing a number of people whose opinions I generally trust enthusing about it — I decided to pick up the new Tomodachi Life game for Switch. I didn't really know much about it going into it, and I bounced hard off the two separate attempts I've made to get into Animal Crossing, so it's not a decision I took lightly. But I'm pleased to report after a brief play at lunchtime — and a much, much longer play this evening — I'm well and truly charmed.

This is Nintendo at its most "software toy" I think I've ever seen them — although I say this with the caveat that I never played the 3DS version of Tomodachi Life. It's a delight. It's like playing The Sims without having to do the boring and annoying bits. It's like playing a citybuilder without having to worry about complicated management things. It's what mobile and social games might have been if they had never been corrupted by greed and predatory monetisation strategies.

Above all, though, it's a medium through which you can express and play with your creativity and imagination, and I love that. While the first couple of hours or so are deliberately constrained to introduce you to the basic features of the game and its interface, it doesn't take long to get to a point where you've unlocked most of the main "mechanics", such as they are, and can start using them to play with your creations in the little world you gradually build for them.

It's possibly the best use of the "Miis" that Nintendo have had on their consoles since the Wii days, and the delightfully lo-fi synthesised speech they talk in — no AI-generated voices here — is a pleasant reminder of a more innocent age.

That can be said about the whole experience, really. It's a reminder of when we all had the capacity to play imaginatively, only now our imaginations can be supported by interactivity. No longer do you have to pretend your dolls are talking to one another, because now they actually do talk to one another — although you're not always privy to the details of all their conversations. (Rather charmingly, you can catch the odd word here and there, and most of these are things that you've previously entered into the game as subjects for them to talk about with one another, meaning my little collection of Miis likes talking about flatulence, eating sausages, cats and F-15 Strike Eagles.

I'll have some more to say about this delightful little game over on MoeGamer when I've spent a bit more time with it. But for now I can say confidently that I'm glad I decided to take a punt on this silly little game. The kind of silliness it offers is precisely what the world needs right now — much as Animal Crossing came along at the exact right time when the pandemic hit. (Even if I didn't get along with Animal Crossing personally, I at least appreciate what it represented.)

Anyway, I've peppered this article with a few screenshots from this evening's session. As I say, I'll have much more to say in the near future, but for now, I should probably go to bed rather than checking in on everyone one last time this evening…

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